A letter, written by ex-News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman in 2007 but only circulated today, has blown the lid off claims by Andy Coulson and Rupurt Murdoch’s executive team that phone hacking was isolated within the company, reports The Guardian.Nick Davies writes:

“Goodman claims that phone hacking was “widely discussed” at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with “the full knowledge and support” of other senior journalists, whom he named.”

Goodman was jailed in 2007 for his role in hacking the voicemail of members of the Royal family.

This is important for two reasons.

It shows the extent to which Andy Coulson was involved in phone hacking and the subsequent cover up. Coulson’s later employment by Prime Minister David Cameron is already a hugely controversial matter.

It now seems likely that Rupert and Jame Murdoch being recalled to parliament to answer fresh questions in the light of new damning evidence. Perhaps most importantly, the letter was passed on to Les Hinton, formerly Murdoch’s right hand man, in 2007. Why did he not pass the information on to police? This makes the situation look more and more like a cover up.